About Me

My photo
No Fixed Abode, Home Counties, United Kingdom
I’m a 60-year-old Aspergic gardening CAD-Monkey. Sardonic, cynical and with the political leanings of a social reformer, I’m also a toy and model figure collector, particularly interested in the history of plastics and plastic toys. Other interests are history, current affairs, modern art, and architecture, gardening and natural history. I love plain chocolate, fireworks and trees, but I don’t hug them, I do hug kittens. I hate ignorance, when it can be avoided, so I hate the 'educational' establishment and pity the millions they’ve failed with teaching-to-test and rote 'learning' and I hate the short-sighted stupidity of the entire ruling/industrial elite, with their planet destroying fascism and added “buy-one-get-one-free”. Likewise, I also have no time for fools and little time for the false crap we're all supposed to pretend we haven't noticed, or the games we're supposed to play. I will 'bite the hand that feeds', to remind it why it feeds.

Tuesday, December 9, 2008

C is for Chariot by HaT Industries

This is the HaT Assyrian chariot, photographed at the third time of gluing!! As you can see I had to engage in some serious engineering to get the whole thing to hold together, even now I'm not happy with the 'hang' of the chariot sides, and the wheels are a whole blog!! This plastic is neither fish nor fowl and manages to have all the problems of both (Brittleness of polystyrene and non-gluability of polyethylene) with few of the benefits.

Also in the picture a spear hand turned in a mini drill after being flattened with a blow from a hammer, I use the centre of another hammer as an anvil. The tip is finished with fine rat-tailed files. I wanted the chariot to be relatively stationary so the horses were cut-n-shut to produce less animated fellows.

Above is the result, again I had trouble getting a good join and ended up using poly-cement, super-glue and body-filler - all at the same time. Below the messenger with his new weapon in situe.

Once I was happy with all the elements I had to base them and the following picture is that process, the larger piece is sitting on a sheet of mild steel and has been marked for cutting, likewise the messenger's horse and groom/holder, who are on a strip of brass.

Single figures get a coin each. The final photo shows the painting to date (I started this months ago and it'll be a while before I finish it - if ever!!!!) really only the horses. The detail on these figures is mind-blowing if you have been brought up on Airfix and Giant/Hong Kong, and I've been using the Games Workshop ink washes to fine effect.

2 comments:

Karolina said...

I had so many of different plastic toys growing up. Who would have thought there is so much more to it :)

Hugh Walter said...

Well, this is the tip of the iceberg!! Thanks for dropping by...